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July 08, 2007

Rep. Hoekstra on Iraq, Interrogation Methods

Fox News Sunday

BRIT HUME, GUEST HOST: I'm Brit Hume, in for Chris Wallace, and this is "Fox News Sunday."

Scooter Libby saved from serving prison time. With Democrats angry at President Bush, what happens next? Is a full pardon possible? We'll ask two key Congressmen, Democrat Chris Van Hollen and Republican Chris Cannon.

Also, the next phase in the war on terror. A top Al Qaida leader threatens new attacks. Is the United States safe? We'll ask the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Pete Hoekstra.

Then from the White House to Iraq to the campaign trail, we'll hash out the hot topics with our Sunday panel, Fred Barnes, Mara Liasson, Bill Kristol and Juan Williams, all right now on "Fox News Sunday."

Good morning again from Fox News in Washington. Let's get a quick check of the latest headlines. In Iraq, a deadly weekend. As many as 156 people have died in separate incidents. Most were killed on Saturday when a truck bomb exploded in a town market 100 miles north of Baghdad crowded with shoppers at the time.

Meanwhile, the U.S. death total in Iraq moved past 3,600 this weekend after nine soldiers were killed during several attacks.

And from London, officials say at least one of the suspects in the recent terror plot there was in contact with Al Qaida in Iraq.

Also, Prime Minister Gordon brown called today for an international register of known or suspected terrorists so that information can be shared easily among nations.

Joining us now to discuss the controversy over President Bush's commuting of the prison sentence of Scooter Libby are two key members of Congress, Democrat Chris Van Hollen, who runs his party's House Campaign Committee, and Republican Chris Cannon from the Judiciary Committee, who comes to us this morning from Utah.

Congressmen, thanks for being with us.

REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D), MARYLAND: Good to be with you.

REP. CHRIS CANNON (R), UTAH: Thank you.

HUME: First to you, Congressman Van Hollen. The president, exercising authority that no one seems to dispute that he fully has, commutes this sentence, stops short of a pardon, leaves the Libby conviction -- felony conviction -- standing, leaves his $250,000 fine standing and leaves his probation in place.

Might seem reasonable to some people. What do you think?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think it shows a contempt for the concept of equal justice under law, and I think the facts tell the story.

Scooter Libby was sentenced by a judge that was appointed first by President Reagan, promoted by President Bush. He was convicted by a jury on four counts -- lying to the FBI, two counts of perjury before a grand jury, and obstruction of justice.

And the judge, who heard all the facts in the case, sentenced him to 2.5 years in prison, which is a prison term that has been pushed by the Bush administration under similar scenarios, except this one.

In this one, they said, "Our guy at the White House gets special treatment." And I think what it does is undermines people's faith in the impartiality of the justice system.

It essentially says that the Bush White House guy got special treatment. It's an example of political cronyism.

And worst of all, it sends a signal throughout the Bush administration that if you lie in a national security case as part of an effort to cover up that you will be essentially given a free pass by the White House.

HUME: What about that, Congressman Cannon? Special treatment? Free pass? What do you say?

CANNON: Well, it's clear that Scooter's not going to go to jail, but he's paid a pretty substantial penalty, a big penalty, $250,000. His career is affected. He's never going to be the same after having gone through this process.

But I think there's a more fundamental issue here that we need to be concerned with, and it's not a Democrat issue or a Republican issue. It's a prosecutorial issue.

And that is, you know, are we going to prosecute Valerie Plame for saying something different in Congress than what she said in her personal e-mails about whether or not her husband was -- she encouraged her husband -- or encouraged the CIA to hire her husband to go to Africa to check out the yellowcake issue?

Are we going to get in those kinds of details? And really, when you look back at this, should we have prosecuted Bill Clinton, who was a public official? Everything that Chris said about Scooter Libby is true about his public position and the responsibility that comes with that.

The president has a much higher responsibility. And while everybody on earth knows that he committed perjury and obstruction of justice, this president did not propose or follow up on prosecuting him in court.

If we're going to get thoughtful support for the president, we have to have an environment where people can give advice without being concerned about having to answer for that five years or six years or a few years later, as was the case with Scooter.

What he did was -- he said something in -- before with FBI interviews and before the grand jury that was slightly inconsistent with the memory of other people.

That is not the kind of harsh environment where we're doing bad things by commuting a sentence on a fellow.

HUME: Well, let's take a look at something, Congressman, that you said about this very question of perjury earlier on -- related to another issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CANNON: Perjury and obstruction of justice are akin to bribery in many ways. Perjury and obstruction go to the corruption of the judicial system. Bribery amounts to the corruption of a bureaucrat. Both prevent citizens from enjoying their rights under the rule of law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Well, what about that? You seem to have softened your view.

CANNON: No, no, not at all. Scooter Libby has been convicted. He's paid a penalty. He's gone through the process.

I think that we probably should have prosecuted Bill Clinton for the issues that I was talking about in that clip, because it does go to the -- by not having prosecuted Bill Clinton, we have said people get a pass.

And I think that we've healed. And having prosecuted Scooter Libby I think goes to some degree to vitiate the problem that we created by a president of the United States who lied and obstructed justice.

People now know that you actually could go to jail for those things or at least have huge penalties.

HUME: Congressman Van Hollen, you were not in Congress at the time that Bill Clinton left office, I believe.

VAN HOLLEN: I was not.

HUME: But may I assume that you were similarly indignant when he issued, what, 141 pardons on his final day, pardoning, among others, his half brother, the fugitive Mark Rich and others all at once? Were you outraged? VAN HOLLEN: I do believe that the Mark Rich and some of the other pardons were inappropriate. And interestingly, the Democratic leadership at the time, like Senator Daschle, who was the Senate Democratic leader, said so at the time. They said it was inappropriate. So did Senator Leahy.

What's interesting about this case is that Republicans who also said the pardons of Rich were inappropriate are now defending this decision by President Bush.

Of course the president's entitled to confidential information. That doesn't mean that people can go out and lie to the FBI, commit perjury before a grand jury and obstruct justice. Those are serious crimes.

And this administration has pursued stiff sentences against other people who have committed those crimes. Their own guy gets a free pass.

HUME: Well, it's not quite a free pass. A $250,000 fine is...

VAN HOLLEN: It is with respect to jail -- not a day in jail. And the fact of the matter is with obstruction of justice, the average time spent in jail by people who go to jail for that is longer than the entire sentence for Scooter Libby.

HUME: Let's talk a little bit about the case itself. Congressman Cannon suggests that this was a case where the prosecutor, having found no underlying crime, that the underlying crime he was originally assigned to investigate had not occurred, knowing almost from the outset who the actual person was who leaked Valerie Plame's CIA identity to the media, and it wasn't Scooter Libby, nor anyone in the Bush White House -- having known all that all along, he forged ahead with an investigation, and the crime he ended up prosecuting did not even occur until the course of the investigation.

Now, that doesn't mean it wasn't a crime, but it does create a set of circumstances in which one might argue that some leniency is indicated. Your response.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think that the entire integrity of our judicial process relies on people telling the truth. In this case, he lied repeatedly.

HUME: Understood. But first offender, long time in public service, well regarded until this moment, really, in terms of his integrity, and then you had the case of a prosecutor, long after he'd found that the crime he was investigating hadn't been committed even, pursuing this, some say, remorselessly.

Doesn't that argue for some mitigation?

VAN HOLLEN: I don't think it argues, certainly, for a commutation of 30 months of sentence by a judge who, unlike you and unlike me and unlike the president, heard all the facts in the case, knew all the information you just talked about, and decided that 2.5 years was appropriate under the circumstances.

Here we are trying to substitute ourselves for judge and jury, and I think that's inappropriate. The integrity of the...

HUME: Well, is that what the president did, in your view?

VAN HOLLEN: That's certainly what the president did.

HUME: But doesn't the Constitution confer upon him the ultimate authority in this matter?

VAN HOLLEN: It does, but I think there's also an expectation that he will do it in a fair and consistent manner. You know, 4,000 people have requests pending for the president to have their sentences commuted.

He has pursued much stiffer sentences for people who committed obstruction of justice in other cases, and yet he's letting his own guy not serve a single day in prison.

It's a terrible message to send, especially in a national security case.

HUME: What about that, Congressman Cannon? What about that point that Congressman Van Hollen makes?

CANNON: Well, I think the important distinction in our views here, and it's not that great, is that you have a judge, an individual, who made a decision in a system that is complex.

Now, Patrick Fitzgerald is a great prosecutor by all accounts. I don't know him personally, but I know people who are very close to him, and I know them well, and they think very highly of him.

He was a guy that had a mission, and you can't just say to one of these guys, "Stop prosecuting." In fact, we don't do that. We never do that.

And so he took an issue that developed out of the course of the investigation. Here, you're saying -- Mr. Van Hollen is talking about lying and obstructing justice, but what you have is a guy who had a memory issue over courses that happened long earlier and people who remembered those discussions differently. That is not the same thing.

And it is highly appropriate for a individual in whom we've invested the authority of the presidency to rethink that of a judge who may or may not -- I don't know the judge and don't want to comment on his competency.

But it is clearly within the construct of our government that the president has the opportunity to review what a judge does. And the judge, having done it, is not definitive and has never been considered definitive in our system.

HUME: Now, Congressman Conyers, the chairman of the committee on which you sit, Congressman Cannon, the Judiciary Committee, says he's going to hold hearings into this whole question of presidential executive clemency, and pardons and the rest of it.

What do you expect to come out of that investigation?

CANNON: Well, you know, when we started the investigation of the firing of the U.S. attorneys, the whole issue was corruption.

And I pointed out in the very first hearing that there had better be corruption. And now we're talking about the politicization of those firings rather than corruption.

If you look at all the investigations -- and Mr. Van Hollen and I are on the Judiciary Committee together and also on Government Reform, or now called Oversight and Government Reform.

And thus far, we've had dozens of hearings in Congress and come up with nothing. This is the kind of thing where you might say -- you can play on what Mr. Van Hollen is saying here consistently, that this somehow is inappropriate, but it's the system.

And it's clearly within the authority of the president. To go after the president on this issue shows a dearth of any opportunity to go after something substantive in this administration.

I would prefer that we not waste our time in Congress on these witch hunts and frivolous activities.

HUME: Dearth of substance, Congressman Van Hollen? Waste of time?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, my friend, Mr. Cannon -- I mean, what we're getting used to is a Congress that actually begins to hold the Bush administration accountable.

The U.S. attorney scandal is a perfect example of the fact that under a Republican Congress, all of that would have been buried. You wouldn't have gotten any of the documents.

It would have been just, "White House, do whatever you want, even though you're essentially abusing the system of justice in the United States."

This is another example. This is a misuse of the president's authority here because, essentially, he has given very special treatment to one person because the person worked at the White House.

HUME: We've got you on that.

CANNON: You said that. Yeah.

VAN HOLLEN: But the point...

CANNON: What have we found in the U.S. attorney issue that has been corrupt? What have we found there that's even relevant to America?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think that... CANNON: Nothing.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, the U.S. attorneys case is very important to America, because every American that goes in a court of law expects to have a fair administration of justice.

You don't expect to have U.S. attorneys who are essentially being rewarded or penalized by the Bush administration based on whether or not they're going after Republicans or after Democrats.

CANNON: But that has absolutely not been shown to be the case. There is no evidence of that at all. And in fact, you have the senior career people who have been very clear that that is not what happened in this case.

VAN HOLLEN: Chris, you've got more than six high-level officials at the Justice Department who have already had to resign as a result of this. Monica Goodling...

CANNON: They didn't have to resign.

VAN HOLLEN: Monica Goodling testified that she...

CANNON: They're people that went on to do other things.

VAN HOLLEN: Yeah, they just decided coincidentally to go on and do other things.

HUME: Well, hold on a second. Hold it a second. What about Congressman Cannon's point that the politicization and the conduct of justice has not been uncovered, has not been shown?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I think it has been...

HUME: In which case?

VAN HOLLEN: I think it has been demonstrated in the New Mexico case, where it was essentially said that if you don't go after people with respect to voting issues...

HUME: It was voter fraud. Do you think it's not OK to go after...

VAN HOLLEN: No, of course it's OK to go after voting fraud. But the fact of the matter is it was after phone calls by Senator Domenici. Heather Wilson called as well.

It was clearly a case of trying to push somebody who exercises his independent judgment -- didn't think the facts were there.

HUME: And did he do so? Did he exercise his independent judgment?

VAN HOLLEN: There was an effort to -- yes.

HUME: I don't understand. So did the effort succeed? VAN HOLLEN: Yes, he did exercise independent judgment. And as a result, he was fired. That's the whole point. He exercised...

CANNON: No, no. He was fired because he's an idiot.

HUME: Go ahead.

VAN HOLLEN: No, the whole point is he did exercise his independent judgment, and as a result of that, he was fired because he didn't take orders from the White House.

HUME: What about it, Congressman Cannon? What do you -- what about that?

CANNON: There is...

HUME: Did the guy get fired because he exercised...

CANNON: There is no evidence that that was...

HUME: ... his judgment or not?

CANNON: There is no evidence that that's the case. There is clear evidence of appropriate activity by phone calls from political people in New Mexico. That's appropriate. Calling it inappropriate does not make it inappropriate.

This is a guy who is clearly not competent to do his job and one of the few people who were decided -- it was decided that he should leave his job because of competency, as opposed to, say, Carol Lam, who was a wonderful prosecutor. Everybody thought very highly of her, but she didn't do what the president wanted her to do.

So show me where anything has come up or describe anything that has come up that has shown inappropriateness in the firings of these people and I'll be astounded.

And by the way, the career people -- Dave Margolis, who sort of oversaw the process -- thinks it's a wonderful process. He's a healing, helpful, growing process for the department, not something nefarious that the Democrats are trying to make of it.

HUME: Congress Van Hollen, let me give you the last word here.

VAN HOLLEN: Well, look. I think it's not just coincidence that the U.S. attorneys who were fired are U.S. attorneys who were not either pursuing political cases against Democrats or defending Republicans. That is an abuse of the process.

Of course the president has the authority to hire and fire U.S. attorneys. It's the exercise of his judgment that is important.

And the fact of the matter is in both this case, where Scooter Libby did not spend a single day in jail despite a 2.5 year sentence, and the U.S. attorney case, it's been a perversion of the system of justice.

HUME: All right.

VAN HOLLEN: And Americans deserve better.

HUME: Congressman Van Hollen, thanks very much for being here.

Congressman Cannon, thanks to you as well.

Up next, what has the United States learned from the attempted attacks in London and Glasgow about terror threats here? We'll get some answers in just a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUME: With us now for the latest on the terror threat facing the United States, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Pete Hoekstra of Michigan.

Welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

REP. PETE HOEKSTRA (R), MICHIGAN: Good to be here. Thank you.

HUME: So the Al Qaida number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, puts out a videotape this week. It looks pretty slick. It seems pretty well produced.

And it suggests at least that he is not only alive but well, so is his movement, and that there are perhaps additional new threats against the United States. What do you say?

HOEKSTRA: I take him very seriously. I mean, what he talks about on his document is he talks about the core countries, which would be Europe and the United States. Then he calls about the outlying countries.

And what he says -- you know, we're going to -- he doesn't say this, but he's really talking about creating a jihadist veil between these northern African countries, the Middle East, going into Asia -- you know, what they would call the caliphate.

And what they want to do is they want to move the violence from this part of the world into the core, into Europe and into the United States. I take him very, very seriously.

HUME: Well, are you more concerned today about the possible threat to the United States than you were before this tape came out, or does this tape simply reinforce what you already thought?

HOEKSTRA: I think the tape reinforces what we already thought and what we knew.

HUME: There seems to be some doubt about whether the tape is even new. Even though it refers to contemporary events, it doesn't make any specific reference to things that have recently happened. So is this just old boilerplate, in your view?

HOEKSTRA: There's not a lot a new stuff in the tape as you go through it, but it's interesting. He quotes Thomas Friedman, and I would think that that is -- some of that is relatively recent.

So I wouldn't say that this is six months or nine months old. I would think that it's probably been produced in the last three months, four months.

HUME: He makes much of the need to succeed, for the terrorist organization to succeed, in Iraq, which suggests that we are at war with Al Qaida in Iraq.

Now, how do members of Congress like yourself who might be considering urging us to get out of Iraq justify that?

HOEKSTRA: Well, I think it's very hard to justify. I mean, I think that, you know, for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who believe that -- or maybe even some Republicans who believe that this effort in Iraq is separate from the war with radical jihadists, I think they're going to find out that they're wrong.

You know, this is more than a bumper sticker war. This is a real threat. We need to defeat Al Qaida where they are. And if they want to pull out of Iraq, what they need to do is they need to say, "We're going to pull out of Iraq."

Then what they have to say is they have to say whether they believe this threat is real or not. If they believe it's real, then they have to identify for the American people, "This is where we're going to engage Al Qaida. This is where we're going to engage radical jihadists. And this is where we're going to defeat them."

If they don't believe it's a real threat, pulling out of Iraq is no big deal.

HUME: So what happens, in your view, when we get what most people expect will be kind of a mixed report from General Petraeus in September -- some progress, some lack of progress, not so much by the Iraqis themselves on the political front?

What do you think will happen then in the House of Representatives?

HOEKSTRA: I think there's going to be pressure on the administration, and I think rightfully so, to take a look and assess the objectives that they have established.

I mean, one of the objectives that I think we need to go back and reevaluate is the president continues to talk about establishing Jeffersonian democracy in Iraq.

HUME: I think he'd settle for less than that now.

HOEKSTRA: I think he would, too, and I think Congress would, saying that we need to focus on security and stability.

HUME: Right. Understood. But what do you think will happen to the - - in other words, if the president wants this troop surge to continue to a certain time, General Petraeus is obviously going to ask for more time.

There are appropriations bills coming which will provide the lifeblood of money for the war. What happens to those measures?

HOEKSTRA: Well, I think that there's going to be tremendous pressure on the president to stop the surge.

But I think where we need to go is we need to go and we need to have this national debate about do we believe that radical jihadists are a threat to U.S. security in the long term. And I'm not sure that we've come to a consensus on that.

HUME: Right, but will the Congress vote, in your view, to cut off money for the war?

HOEKSTRA: I don't believe that Congress will vote to cut off money for the war. And you got two wars. Which war are we talking about, the one in Iraq or the larger war? HUME: Right. Well, obviously, nobody is going to say they're against fighting the larger war. The question is whether -- the question is will they cut off money for the fighting in Iraq.

HOEKSTRA: But I'm not sure that's true, Brit. Take a look at what they've already said. You know, when you call it a bumper sticker war, you know, that says that you believe that this is a make- believe war that is manufactured for some political purpose. You would be more than willing to cut off funding for that.

Take a look at some of the stuff that's come out of the intelligence bill. I mean, you know, where they've said they've cut funding for special operations and the efforts that help us directly go after Al Qaida and radical jihadists and said that one of our key priorities needs to be focusing intelligence community efforts on global warming.

This tells you that there are people out here that don't believe that radical jihadists are a threat regardless of what happens in London or in the U.K.

HUME: Let me turn you to the -- speaking of London, that plot that was uncovered, largely foiled or largely failed.

HOEKSTRA: Yeah.

HUME: What do you take away from that in terms of what it says about the nature of the threat not only there, but also possibly here, when you have in the midst of it all these doctors?

HOEKSTRA: Yeah. Number one, it tells you that the people that we are fighting are not just necessarily the people that are coming out of poverty, living in the slums and these types of things, that there are people, well educated people, who have bought into the jihadist methods, jihadist myth of attacking the West.

And they're willing to act on that. Not only have they bought into it and say, "Yeah, we subscribe and we support jihadism, but we're willing to act and to risk our lives and to risk our futures on this."

HUME: Do we do a better job of screening people who come here to work as doctors -- something like 25 percent of our force of doctors is from outside this country.

Do we do a better job of screening those people to find out who they are and what may be motivating them than these other countries such as Britain do?

HOEKSTRA: Well, we're going to have to take a look at exactly who these guys were, when they became radicalized. Did they come over and were they directed by Al Qaida radical jihadists when they came to the U.K., or did they become radicalized after they were in the U.K.?

I think, you know, the evidence is clear that over the last decade, we have been much stricter about who we allow into the United States than what the Brits have.

The Brits really became a haven for radical jihadists, and that's part of their problem. That has never happened in the United States.

HUME: Let me turn to the issue -- or something related to the issue we talked about in the first segment, and that is this CIA leak investigation which ended up prosecuting no one for the leak itself.

What is your take on all of that? What is your view of how that came out? Do you think that investigation was properly handled, that it went in the wrong directions, went in the right direction? What's your view of it?

HOEKSTRA: I think you make a very compelling case that it went in the wrong direction.

You know, Fitzgerald found out relatively early in the process that there probably was not an underlying crime, you know, that what they were - - that the revealing of this name was not a covert agent, and -- but pursued the investigation anyway.

I'm just surprised that this is where the Democrats want to go. Do they really want to talk about the 140 pardons, 141 pardons that Bill Clinton gave his last day in office to Mark Rich, to his half brother? You know, you go right through that list. That's a pretty ugly list. I don't think the Democrats want to go there, but they appear to...

HUME: They're doing a pretty good job of it at the moment.

HOEKSTRA: They're doing a pretty good job, and part of it may be we're not going back and talking about exactly what Bill Clinton did.

HUME: Well, Congressman Van Hollen was pretty aggressive about that. I mean, he said, "Look, I disapproved of that and so did the leadership in the Congress, the Democratic leadership in the Congress."

So can't they easily differentiate themselves from him on this issue?

HOEKSTRA: I don't think they can. I think we'll put up the record of the president versus the record of Bill Clinton, and the president will come out relatively good on that.

I'm not sure that either one of them have used the pardons in the way that I'd like to see them being used, but the record of one to the other is pretty good.

HUME: I want to draw you out on something that has become an issue in the campaign. It came up particularly in the debate that Fox News did in questions to Senator McCain and others.

And that is this question of what the administration, CIA and people who are involved in it called enhanced interrogation techniques.

Senator McCain says -- he is in a position, presumably, to know what they are. He believes they're torture. You're familiar by virtue of your -- I'm not going to ask you to describe any classified information, but you know what the methods are. Do you believe they're torture?

HOEKSTRA: I don't believe they're torture, no.

HUME: And you don't believe they're torture -- you must have some sense of how many captives have been affected by them, how often and how widely these techniques are used.

I'm not asking for numbers, but what can you tell us about that?

HOEKSTRA: What I can tell you is that on a bipartisan basis, the White House consistently has reached out, has briefed the leaders in the House and the Senate on exactly the number, the techniques, and the information that was gained that kept America safe in both -- and members from both parties walked out of the room and supported the efforts.

HUME: Let me ask you this. Are we talking about a large number of instances in which these enhanced interrogation techniques have been used?

HOEKSTRA: I think that from my perspective, I'd say it's a very small number, but again...

HUME: A very small number.

HOEKSTRA: ... for some people, they would say one is too many and that is a huge number.

HUME: No, I understand that.

HOEKSTRA: Yeah.

HUME: But we're not talking about hundreds here.

HOEKSTRA: I can't get into details, but I think most Americans would look at it and say that's not a very large number where these techniques have been used. And the results have been very, very positive.

HUME: I want to ask you about that a little further, because a number of people -- George Tenet said it in his book; Michael Hayden, who is now in charge there at the CIA has suggested it as well -- that this has proved to be the most vital source of information, these enhanced interrogation techniques used, according to you and others, on a relatively small number of captives.

Do you agree with that assessment, that it's been the most valuable?

HOEKSTRA: It has been very, very effective. It has been very, very closely monitored and managed not only by the executive branch, but with congressional oversight.

That's why the program was allowed to continue, because of how well it was managed, the limited number of times where it was used, and how effective it proved to be.

HUME: Now, let me bring you full circle here on this question of Iraq and the war on terror. Do you believe the war in Iraq is now essentially a fight -- front in the fight against Al Qaida and the international terrorist operations it sponsors? Or do you believe it is really just a civil war that we're in the middle of?

HOEKSTRA: I think, clearly, Al Qaida -- if you take a look at what they're saying, they're saying it is a front.

They want to beat us in Iraq just like they perceive they beat the Russians in Afghanistan, and they believe that the results will then be similar, that the U.S. will collapse, that they can then destabilize the countries in the region, the moderate Muslim countries in the region, go through northern Africa, eliminate the state of Israel and establish the caliphate.

HUME: And you believe Congress will not vote to stop this war as long as the president is in office?

HOEKSTRA: I think that it will be very, very difficult for them to stop -- for those who disagree with this, for them to cut off funding for our troops in Iraq, but also to really damage the effort in this fight against radical jihadists.

HUME: Congressman Pete Hoekstra, good to see you, sir.

HOEKSTRA: Good to be here. Thank you.

HUME: Thanks for coming in.

Coming up next, our "Fox News Sunday" power panel, as we like to call it, on the week in politics, from the Bill and Hill road show to McCain's money woes. All that and more. Right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON: I hope the next president of the United States, Senator Hillary Clinton.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: Well, that, of course, was you know who campaigning in Iowa this weekend with you know who.

And it's panel time for Fox News contributors Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard, Mara Liasson of National Public Radio, Bill Kristol, also of The Weekly Standard, and Juan Williams, also of National Public Radio.

Let's review this situation. We see Bill and Hill, as everybody calls them, on the campaign trail together. You see fundraising numbers come out which show that Barack Obama has done it again, breaking records.

Let's look at his -- we've got a graphic, I think, that shows you how he did in this past quarter, something on the order of $32.5 million. There you see it. Senator Clinton, $27 million, John Edwards, who has money of his own, trailing there with $9 million.

Think about those totals, folks. That's, what, nearly $70 million raised by the Democrats in the second quarter. So let's talk a little bit about where that race now stands.

Senator Clinton continues to lead in the polls. She's got her husband out. Smart move, not such a smart move? Did she need to do it? Is it a sign of strength, sign of weakness, what? Fred?

FRED BARNES, WEEKLY STANDARD: Well, it's not a sign of strength. I mean, the strategy of her campaign was to save him until -- to use Bill Clinton as a -- out on the campaign trail for -- with her in the fall in the general election, not now. And it is very risky to do that now.

HUME: Why?

BARNES: Well, it's, one, the contrast between the two of them just style-wise. I mean, he's charismatic. She's boring.

It also raises issues that she doesn't want to raise. And look what happened. I mean, they're out in Iowa. When they -- I mean, they foolishly -- both of them, Hillary and Bill, foolishly criticized the pardon of Scooter Libby, and what was fired back at them from the White House and others were the most egregious list of pardons ever in American history, those 141 pardons of Bill Clinton, including one that rewarded some people who had specifically voted in favor of -- got their whole village.

It was some Hasidic Jews who had been convicted -- I forget what it was. They voted overwhelmingly for Hillary and then went and asked for a pardon and got it. So I think it's very risky having Bill Clinton out there.

HUME: Mara?

MARA LIASSON, NPR: I think right now it's not as risky as it might be later. But I do think it's a sign of weakness. I don't think he'd be out there with her if she was doing better in Iowa or if Obama hadn't raised the kind of money that he had raised.

I think that he is very popular among the Democratic base. I think the arguments that they make about Libby are very popular among the Democratic base.

I think later on it could be a big risk for her, and a lot of Democrats are starting to grumble that she's running a campaign that's basically a restoration. She's running kind of an incumbent campaign, a very safe, cautious, frontrunner's campaign. That part is understandable.

But she often talks about his record in the '90s. Granted, he is extremely popular, and maybe there is some Clinton nostalgia among Democratic primary voters, but if elections are about the future, you know, talking about having him back in the White House is certainly about the past.

BILL KRISTOL, WEEKLY STANDARD: Yeah, I'm not going to be voting in the Democratic primary. That's a surprise to you, Brit.

But I would say if I had a choice just in terms of who I would like to think about occupying the White House for the next four years, I'd kind of prefer Barack and Michelle Obama to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

And there is something about -- if you're a Democrat, you want change. Do you really want the Clintons coming back with all the questions and baggage that raises?

Are we going to really have 24 years of Bush as president, Bush for four years, the first President Bush, then Clinton for eight years, then another Bush for eight years, then another Clinton?

At some point, I think voters, especially if you want a change, which Democrats do -- they look up and say, "Why exactly do we have to nominate Hillary Clinton? Why would she be a better president than Barack Obama? What do they really disagree on? Won't they have pretty much the same cabinet?" I mean, I think at some point, I kind of -- Obama is an underdog right now, but I like his chances.

JUAN WILLIAMS, NPR: Well, I'm not here to make the case for Hillary Clinton, but the obvious answer to what you just said is experience, that people see Hillary Clinton, with Bill Clinton, especially, a man who's been in the White House, a presidency that ended on what many consider to be a high note. He had the highest ratings of any president going out, I think, the last five or so terms.

So that's all positive for Hillary Clinton. And having him out there is a big boost because he is a star. I remember seeing him in Selma and, gosh, the minute he showed up, it was like, you know, she was an extra on the stage.

HUME: Well, I know, but doesn't that point out the danger, though, that he makes her appear to be, as you put it, an extra?

WILLIAMS: No. She's an extra without a doubt when compared to him, but it's not a danger if you're trying to win the White House.

And if people are concerned about Hillary as a polarizing figure, someone who energizes the Republicans in a way that nobody else on the Democratic side might, given that the political landscape at the moment favors the Democrats overwhelmingly, the argument might be why nominate Hillary.

She's the one Democrat that could actually lose. But if Bill Clinton is standing there, Bill Clinton, suddenly people say, "Well, they're experienced. Bill Clinton is part of this. We have a positive feeling about Clinton," and it might actually give her a boost.

BARNES: You know, when you look back over the presidential elections of the last 50 years or so, you realize how little the voters care about experience. I mean, they elected George Bush. I mean, his idea of -- he said he was a foreign -- experienced in foreign policy because Texas had a relationship with Mexico. I don't think that convinced anybody.

And Bill Clinton -- was he experienced? Was Ronald Reagan experienced in foreign policy and national politics? Was Jimmy Carter? No, people don't care much.

I think the notion that people are going to vote in the Democratic primaries for Hillary over Obama on the basis of experience -- it's just not empirically provable.

LIASSON: Well, first of all, I do think experience is a big factor. And I think since 9/11 things have changed.

HUME: In primary voting?

LIASSON: I think so. I mean, they want somebody who can win. If they think that because she's experienced, she has a better chance of prevailing in the general election, that could help her. I do think, though, that after 9/11, experience in foreign policy became more important. I don't know if George W. Bush could have been elected after 9/11.

KRISTOL: And what exactly is her extensive experience in foreign policy or in anything? She's been a senator for six years. Obama's been a senator for two years. So, I mean, big deal.

She hasn't passed any legislation. He hasn't either. She sat in the White House while her husband was president.

WILLIAMS: Literally. She was in the White House.

KRISTOL: Well, big deal.

WILLIAMS: All right.

KRISTOL: Let's nominate Laura Bush. I mean, it's ridiculous.

WILLIAMS: Well, no, no. It's different. She's run and won a Senate seat from a huge state, New York state.

The big issue at the moment, the determinative issue, is the war in Iraq. This week you've got in the Senate major consideration, all these candidates coming out now to talk about how to get the U.S. out of Iraq.

KRISTOL: Which Hillary Clinton, the most experienced person, the person who had seen intelligence briefings presumably with her husband, voted for.

If you're a Democrat, I totally agree with Fred on this. What's that experience worth? She's the experienced one. She voted for a war that I myself approve of but most Democrats don't.

Obama, the inexperienced guy, had the wit in October 2002 to say this was a mistake.

WILLIAMS: He wasn't in the Senate, but let me just say...

KRISTOL: He said this was a mistake, so I like...

WILLIAMS: That's a deficit for her, a plus for Obama. But this week coming forward, what you're going to see is all sorts of proposals exactly how to get out.

What we've seen this past week is Senate majority leader saying, "Listen, there's been a change," and he wants Democrats to go full bore and Republicans, including some senior Republicans -- Domenici, Lugar, Voinovich -- saying, "You know what? We've got to change. We can't just support this president blindly."

HUME: Speaking of Republicans, let's take a look at their fundraising totals, which are not tremendously noteworthy -- Giuliani ahead, which is encouraging to his campaign. Some thought it might be losing steam. You'll notice that the totals among the top three are something over $41 million, $42 million, compared to nearly $70 million for the Democrats.

Juan, does that make your point that it would be hard for the Democrats -- help to make your point that it would be hard for any Democrat to lose this time around, that they've got all the enthusiasm and they're backing their candidates with a lot more dough than the supposedly rich Republicans are?

WILLIAMS: Well, you know, it's real early for the Republicans right now, earlier than it is for the Democrats, and I say that because I think people don't have a sense of who even the frontrunners are among the Republicans, who's likely to get it.

And a lot of the big money people are staying out of the game right now on the Republican side.

HUME: Speaking of that, there's a poll from Rasmussen this week, a Rasmussen Reports poll, which shows that the leading candidate among the Republicans is -- and that ain't Tommy Thompson, folks. That's Fred Thompson, and he, by some statistically insignificant margin, is now ahead of all the rest of the field.

Bill, does that show strength or weakness in the Republican field? Some would say it shows weakness when the guy who hasn't declared is leading.

KRISTOL: No, I think it's a strong field. And look. The Democrats will have more money, and they could be the party of the rich, the plutocrats, Hollywood, Beverly Hills.

LIASSON: That's going to be a hard -- look, I think Democrats...

KRISTOL: Actually, Fred Thompson against Hillary Clinton, Fred Thompson will be more the populist candidate.

LIASSON: Oh, he could definitely -- look, and that's how he ran before. He'll put on his flannel shirt or whatever it is, his plaid shirt, and get into the pickup truck again.

Look. There's no doubt the Democrats are more energized and they are happier with their field. I mean, they are energized, optimistic and happy with their choices.

Republicans are just the opposite. They're demoralized and pessimistic about 2008. That doesn't mean they're going to lose.

KRISTOL: No, I'm cheerful.

BARNES: Republicans have decided that one choice -- I mean, they have one choice that they think is most important. You ask almost any Republican, "How in the world are you going to reunite this Republican party that's divided over Bush, immigration, Iraq and everything," and they say one word, Hillary. If she's nominated, it brings the party together. Even if Rudy Giuliani, who's pro-choice, runs, it, I think, eliminates a possibility of a serious third party pro-life candidate, so Hillary is the uniter.

WILLIAMS: So it's all about hate.

BARNES: No, it's not about hate.

WILLIAMS: It's all about hating Hillary, not about the war in Iraq, not about immigration. Is that a serious identity for the Republican Party, Fred?

BARNES: Well, at this point it helps.

HUME: Republicans for Hillary. You thought you'd never hear that. All right.

We've got to take a break here, but coming up, the fallout from the commutation of Scooter Libby's jail term. Did it help the president politically or what? We'll find out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUME: On this day in 1932, the New York Stock Exchange fell to its lowest point during the decade-long Great Depression. The initial crash of the stock market took place in October 1929.

Stay tuned for more panel.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I felt punishment was severe, so I made a decision that would commute his sentence but leave in place a serious fine and probation.

As to the future, I'm -- you know, rule nothing in and nothing out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUME: The president also said in explaining his decision to commute the jail sentence of Scooter Libby that all options for the future remained open.

And having said that, he said, however, that he felt that the jury verdict should stand. That would appear, at least on the surface, to foreclose a subsequent pardon.

Now, let's just get some quick thoughts on whether Libby will eventually be pardoned or this is as far as the president will go. Bill?

KRISTOL: Oh, he could still pardon him. And incidentally, if he pardons...

HUME: He could, but having said the jury verdict should stand, wouldn't that be reversing himself?

KRISTOL: Well, he would, but Libby would have paid the fine. And you don't get that back, I don't believe, if you're pardoned. So there would have been a certain punishment for Libby. I think a pardon is quite possible.

HUME: Do you think it will happen, Juan?

WILLIAMS: Well, at this point, I guess he could. I mean, he says anything is open, so I'll take the man at his word.

LIASSON: Yeah, I think that was the more operative part of his statement, rather than respecting the jury verdict.

HUME: Allowing the jury verdicts to stand?

LIASSON: But I do think that -- you know, Libby is appealing. I mean, he also -- he could get his sentence overturned. But I think that the president could very well pardon him at the end.

HUME: Fred?

BARNES: You know, I thought it was likely that he would pardon him upon leaving office January 20th, 2009. I'm not so sure anymore, because it's clear the president thinks, one, that Scooter Libby was guilty but the sentence was too harsh, and that's what he dealt with.

Look, he wouldn't have done anything now if it hadn't have been for the fact that Libby couldn't get bail and was going to have to go to jail, so the president stepped in.

You know, he hasn't wanted to be involved in this case. His plan was just to let the appeals run out and then he'd act, as I say, maybe on the last day of his term. So I'm not so sure there will be a pardon.

HUME: The issue has shown some legs. It was a slow week in Washington with the holiday and all. But we're still talking about it on this program and I'm sure on others today, Democrats jumping all over it, believing it's a winning issue.

Mara, is this a winning issue for Democrats?

LIASSON: I think for the very short term it's a winning issue. I think this is fleeting. I think it did fill a vacuum and a void. But I think over time, it's not going to be some kind of major issue.

I think that it's pure base politics. I think for the president, it was an important thing to do for his base. He has very low approval ratings. I think it would have hurt him if he didn't. I don't know how much lower he can go. But I think that that's one of the political benefits he got.

I think for the Democrats, this is something that fierce partisans care about. I think to the majority of Americans, it's confusing. I mean, what exactly happened? And the fact that the real leaker, Richard Armitage, was never prosecuted -- it's very, very complicated.

But I think for the moment, good politics for the Democrats, good base politics for the Democrats. Over time, I think this is going to just disappear.

HUME: So is this a -- Mara's theory is this is...

BARNES: I don't think it's good politics... HUME: ... a move that helps the president with his base and helps the Democrats with their base.

BARNES: Look. I mean, I think there's a notion going around that a lot of conservatives are mad at the president because there was not a pardon. I haven't sensed that. I think most of them are satisfied.

You know, I mean, Democrats -- this is what they say. Now, rather than -- you know, we're going to form a task force or a committee on some issue, they always say, "We're going to have a hearing," so they're going to have a hearing on this.

Look, the public doesn't care.

WILLIAMS: You know, I just think you're wrong.

BARNES: And it's as simple as that. So Democrats aren't...

WILLIAMS: The numbers don't support this, Fred.

BARNES: ... going to get anything from this.

WILLIAMS: The numbers don't support -- the numbers are like 70 percent of Americans think that he should have left the sentence alone. Not only that...

BARNES: Don't you know how polls work?

WILLIAMS: Excuse me?

BARNES: You have to ask somebody this question. If you ask them, they'll give you an opinion. Are they out there thinking about this case? No.

WILLIAMS: My sense is that Democrats will continue to hammer this. I don't think it's going away, because I think it suggests that the president acts above the law, that he protects one of his own when it comes to a matter of lying and obstructing justice, that you can go and look at spying, at treatment of detainees, you know, domestic spying, and people say, "Well, they just try to go around the law."

That's what Bill Clinton said when they raised the Mark Rich thing. He said, "These people act as if the law should be no obstacle to whatever they want to do." I believe that's going to be an issue throughout this campaign.

KRISTOL: I hope it is an issue, and I hope the president is more aggressive in addressing all these charges. Let's have a real debate about the eavesdropping, after the London plot last week and the reporting that a couple of them were planning to come to America.

God forbid we should find out what people are saying in the U.S. to people in London, or people in Pakistan or people in Iraq, which is the case here. There were contacts between these London bombers and people in the Middle East, apparently in Iraq. And there have often been contacts with Pakistan. Let's have a debate about the...

WILLIAMS: Sure. Go to court and get them.

KRISTOL: Let's have a debate about the treatment of detainees. I would welcome that debate.

WILLIAMS: Sure. Fine.

KRISTOL: Why has there not been an attack here, as everyone predicted there would be, for -- what is it now? -- 5.5 years, almost 6 years since 9/11?

The president needs -- I'm heartened by the president's commutation of the sentence of Libby. I would have preferred a pardon, because maybe he will start fighting. Maybe he will start fighting...

WILLIAMS: Bill...

KRISTOL: ... the Democrats and making a case for his policies. He has a good case to make for his policies. The problem is he hasn't made it.

WILLIAMS: Thank God we haven't been attacked, but I'm so curious that you would now connect this to the Libby commutation.

In other words, you're going back and saying, "Oh, this justifies -- this is vindication for all the errors that led us to use -- to twist intelligence and get us into this misbegotten war." That's what you're saying? "Oh, Libby is the justification, the vindication, for everything now."

KRISTOL: No, I think you were the one who raised the detainees. I'm just happy to debate any of these issues. I'm also happy to debate Libby.

Sandy Berger stole documents, lied about it -- not a moment in jail. Bill Clinton lied to a grand jury, accepted a plea bargain, paid a fine.

Let the Democrats go to the country and say, "Scooter Libby should go to jail for having one memory of a conversation he had with Tim Russert which Tim Russert remembered otherwise." That is the only count on which he was convicted. It is a question of the memory of a conversation he had with Russert.

Let the Democrats say, "Libby should go to jail. Bush is horrible. The Clintons are wonderful."

WILLIAMS: Do you think Patrick Fitzgerald was politically motivated in going after and pursuing this? Do you think that Reggie Walton, the judge, was politically motivated? Do you think the jurors were politically motivated?

They all made a decision and they did it on the basis of law. Even the sentence was done on the basis of American law. And you're saying, "Oh, no, this is all about politics?"

HUME: Anybody else want to get in this?

BARNES: I think they're doing fine.

HUME: Go ahead, Bill.

KRISTOL: Look. I think the problem -- the reason the president has been sinking in the last 1.5 years, two years in the polls is because he has not been making the case for his policies, and he has not been executing his policies aggressively enough.

The first term, which people like you think was such a disaster -- he won re-election. He was in pretty good shape then. The world was moving in the right direction.

He backed off, unfortunately, in the second term. We were much less aggressive in fighting -- in pushing ahead in the Middle East. We didn't send more troops to Iraq early enough.

I think the president is poised for a comeback. Now, I've said that many times in the last 18 months, but it's like when you predict the end of a bear market, eventually you're right. You know? I'm hoping eventually I'm right.

BARNES: There may be a signal this week the president -- this past week, where the president did get a little tougher.

One, the White House jumped in when President Bush was criticized on the Libby pardon by the Clintons, a big mistake on their part. Look, that's a debate they'll be glad to have.

And then in yesterday's radio address, the president was much tougher on Democrats on a number of issues -- spending, the budget, all kinds of things -- than he has been at least since Democrats took over.

HUME: Well, what do you attribute that to?

LIASSON: Ed Gillespie.

BARNES: Well, I think Ed Gillespie, who's the new communications director, is important. Ed is tough. Ed is a fighter. He replaced Dan Bartlett, who I think took a different approach.

WILLIAMS: Well, let me just say this, though. Why did the president act before the end of his term, before Libby serves a day in jail? Why does he act without consultation with the Justice Department? Why does he act without consultation with anybody?

LIASSON: Bill Clinton didn't consult with...

WILLIAMS: The reason looks like he wants Libby silent and not talking about what...

HUME: Mara? Mara? LIASSON: You know what? It was a political pardon, but so -- look. Bill Clinton didn't go through the normal process for Mark Rich either, and he...

WILLIAMS: It was the end of his term, right? You could make the case that Mark Rich...

LIASSON: Well, what's the difference?

HUME: What difference does that make?

KRISTOL: Let me explain why...

WILLIAMS: To jump in in the middle, before the judicial process, before the appeals process?

LIASSON: Well, Mark Rich was a fugitive who happened to be the ex- husband of a big Democratic funder, but he hadn't gone through the judicial process. He was a fugitive.

KRISTOL: Here's why the president acted the way he did. He knew Bill Clinton was joining Hillary in Iowa on July 4th.

(LAUGHTER)

No, I'm serious. So on July 2d, Ed Gillespie, who's a very canny Republican operator, said, "Let's pardon Libby. Clinton will rise to the bait, and we could spend the last half of the week debating the unbelievable Clinton pardons against the defensible Bush pardon."

So I regard this as an extremely clever Machiavellian move by the president. It cheers me up. It cheers me up about the Bush White House, and I'm really heartened.

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